Tehelka to host two-day summit in the Capital on November 20

Tehelka is out to give voice to the silent majority, who otherwise find no platform to air their views, via a seminar called ‘Summit of the Powerless’. The two-day seminar will be held in the Capital on November 20-21.

Sharing his thoughts on the rationale behind organising the summit, Tarun Tejpal, Editor-in-Chief, Tehelka, said, “The reason Tehelka thought of organising the Summit of the Powerless is because most other summits deal only with the rich and powerful, while the ordinary, grassroots voice is usually left out. At the Summit of the Powerless, we will get political, corporate and social voices interacting on the same platform – which is a rare occurrence.”

“The idea of the Summit is to create an environment where the powerful will lend their ear to the powerless. The Summit seeks to bring the powerful into a new context. A context visually, emotionally, and conceptually constructed to be empathetic to the powerless. The core idea of the Summit is to bring together the three key stakeholders of a free society on to the same platform – money, power, and people,” he further said.

The theme for this year’s Summit is ‘Two Indias, One Future’. Under this matrix, the Summit will discuss issues like ‘The role of the State’, ‘The farmer crisis - The gap between rural and urban India’, ‘Reservations’, ‘Naxals’, ‘Kashmir’, The North-East, ‘Land usage’, and ‘A vision for more equitable cities’.

Some of the key people who would delve on these issues include the likes of Aruna Roy, Anna Hazare, Kamal Nath, Sitaram Yechury, L K Advani, Arun Maira, Ajit Singh, Sachin Pilot, Rajiv Bakshi, Sharad Pawar, Amrinder Singh, Arjun Singh, Arun Shourie, Kapil Sibal, and Praful Patel. President A P J Abdul Kalam would be a speaker at the summit.

This is the first time that Tehelka is organising a summit, which, Tejpal indicated, would be an annual feature.